Big Mutha Truckers

Trucking games are something of a rarity in the gaming world, with
the nice but shamefully brief "18 Wheeler" being the only title to
spring immediately to mind. Now Empire has entered the
diesel-guzzling arena with "Big Mutha Truckers", an arcade racer
with strategic trading elements. Armed with just a half-melted
Yorkie bar, I jumped into my rig to find out just what in tarnation
the fuss is all about.

Rootin' Tootin'

Poor old Ma Jackson is getting too old to
operate the family business - the aptly named 'Big Mutha
Truckers'. She gathers her four young'uns together and gives
them sixty days to terrorise Hick State County, doing whatever
it takes to make a buck. Whoever earns the most money will
take over the business. You have to pick from the unlikeliest
of challengers; Cletus, Rawkus, Earl and the obligatory
over-breasted female character Bobbie-Sue. There is no real
advantage to picking one character over another; you just get
different cabin décor and differing views from the
natives.

There are two game modes in BMT, the central one being the 'Trial
By Truckin' mode, but there is also the 'Mission' mode, which
simply allows you to play through the various missions given to you
in the main game. The inclusion of a straight racing mode or time
challenge would have been nice, but you do get to race against
other trucks in the main game anyway.

Once you've chosen your alter-ego, you are briefed by Ma Jackson
herself, and you're off! You begin the game with cargo already on
board, and it is up to you where you go from BMT HQ to sell it.
There are only a handful of towns to go to, but the overall map is
impressively large. Once at a town you not only get the chance to
buy and sell goods, you can also upgrade your rig at the garage
with more efficient brakes, turbo boosters etc, etc. A bar can be
visited where you can play on the fruit machine to foolishly
fritter your money, or pick up a loan from the local sharks. You
also get handy tips from the bar workers of which towns are lacking
what product, and pick up special missions too.

It's a fix!

To upgrade your rig quickly, you're best off
going for the loan option, but as you'd expect you have to pay
this back fairly pronto so you'd better hope to be earning
some money and soon. Failure to repay will result in your rig
being hit for home runs by the local baseball bat crew, until
finally it gets repossessed and the game is over. A far more
sensible approach is to simply trade from the very start. The
trading system is a little simplistic, but effective, and
you'll be raking in the dosh in no time. Be warned though,
each visit to a town constitutes one whole day, so you really
need to find out which towns are selling which goods early to
make full use of your time.

It's not just about trading though - you also get hefty rewards for
winning the various race challenges set by other truckers, and the
missions pay well too. In addition to this you can find yourself
sparring with the local police, (you actually have to blow them up
to get any peace), and if you annoy the bikers they will come after
you too. You have to shake these dudes off before they climb onto
your truck and jack your cargo if allowed to get to your cabin.

Keep on Truckin'

Graphically, BMT is hard to fault with the towns and connecting
road scenery all looking extremely nice. There are big frame-rate
dips, but thankfully this is infrequent and certainly not enough to
spoil the game. The only really disappointing thing is that with
all the nice scenery whizzing past you can't really see enough of
it due to the camera's questionable vantage point. You do have four
modes to pick from, but while the default third person mode is the
best to use, it is also somewhat oddly the most restrictive.
Switching to in-cabin view is a hopelessly unplayable option, but
amusing when you see the various states of untidiness of all four
rigs. But they key reason for using the default third person view
is simply the size of your rear end.

Controlling the trucks is a little bit
cumbersome at first, but soon becomes a breeze; you just have
to get that car driving thought out of your head! It is
actually quite fun once you get the hang of it, but when you
steer hard you've got a whole lot of rear to keep under
control. It is by no means a simulation, but is convincing
enough to require a different mindset to your normal racer. It
can be quite amusing when you get yourself in what I call The
Pendulum Situation, where your cargo is swinging crazily from
left to right as you try to correct the steering. What isn't
amusing is that when you crash, the time it takes to get
yourself facing forwards again can be excruciatingly
frustrating, and the cause of many mission failures.

All this hard truckin' wouldn't be any fun without some foot
stomping music, and this is one area where BMT scores highly with a
GTA3 style selectable radio. This plays anything from Deep Purple's
'Smoke on the Water' to your typical bluegrass style. There is a
fair amount of bleeped out hick swearing on one of the stations,
which may upset some people, but it tickled me pink for some
reason. Which reminds me of the voice acting - overall, it's very
nicely done, with lots of good humoured stereotyping going on. But
what is going on with the lack of mouth movement when the
characters speak? That's just plain weird Cletus!

Top of the World Ma!

Sadly, victory is a long ways off for budding truckers, and I often
found myself thinking I was doing really well only to visit Ma
Jackson and discover I was in last place. What's more, though the
game is initially good fun, there just isn't enough variety to
sustain interest for too long, and I can't see myself picking it up
again anytime soon for another blast. With a little more content
this could well have been a winner, but ultimately this one is
bound for the shelf of doom. It's certainly worth a rental, but I
would find it hard to recommend a purchase.